In the world of retro reviews there is always one given: the reviewer is usually in his/her thirties. For many of our younger readers, this may seem…what’s that word…awful. But for those of us who were around in the young to middle years of the video game industry, it simply means that: A) We have more points of reference, and B) We appreciate things that back then were truly awesome.
The X-Men arcade game was one of those truly awesome things.
We’ve upped the XBLA size limit from 150mb to 350mb.
We’ve stated that underperforming games on XBLA may be delisted. To be delisted, a game has to meet all three of the following criteria:
Been on the service for at least 6 months
Have less than a 65 Metacritic rating
Have a conversion rate of less than 6%
Now, let’s get into your delisting questions:
Q: What’s “conversion rate”?
A: When people download a trial XBLA game, and then purchase that game, that’s called a conversion. So if less than 6% of all trials downloaded lead to full game purchases - that’s one of the 3 criteria we look at when deciding to delist a game.
Q: Why are you delisting games?
A: We have a LOT of XBLA titles onto the service. By filtering out the lower performing games, it will actually make it easier to find the games you really want. Read More »
We had brought you coverage of the event, but here are the official event times and records for all to see. Five were attempted and only two were broken.
Special congratulations to both Daniel and Michael on their two new Guinness World Records! We hope to have an interview with the new Guinness World Record holder for Tapper very shortly, so stay tuned for that.
In celebration of the release of the inaugural Guinness World Records™: Gamer’s Edition 2008 book, Guinness World Records hosted a record-breaking event at Barcade in Brooklyn, NY. With gamers competing on any one of five classic arcade games, two new records were actually set by New York’s finest and fastest gamers.
First, Daniel Dujinc manuevered Pac Man’s significant other through tight turns and giddy ghosts to grab the Guinness World Record for Fastest Time to Beat Five Board on Ms. Pac Man with a time of 2′05″80. Then, not to be outdone, Michael Przybocki poured pints at blistering speeds to take the Guinness World Record for Fastest Time to Beat Five Boards on Tapper with a time of 1′20″43. Read More »
Ever wonder what it would be like to lose your gamertag? I had never thought about it and then came across this guy who wrote an article recalling his adventure or misfortune of going to the university for a year and trying to come back and get some gaming in, only to find that he was screwed out of his account. Apparently if your credit card expires while you are not a member and you are away for more than a year, your account will be canceled and not be allowed to be re-opened.
The horrible part of it all is that he not only lost his gamerscore, but also all of his downloaded content and games. That means all his arcade games are gone and will not be given back to him. This actually sucks especially for those gamers that are going away to school or in the case of a guy I met just yesterday, who was stationed in Germany and then leaving to Iraq for who knows how long? Imagine going off to fight for your country and then coming back and finding out that MS screwed you.
Here is some of this gamer’s thoughts and the replies he got back from the friendly MS customer service rep. [Via Totally 360]
“But why?” I asked. “You have a violation of billing” he responded. Apparently due to my credit card expiring I had violated the terms and conditions of Xbox Live. “You haven’t phoned us for a year and thus your account is cancelled”. I went on to explain I had accessed my account on Xbox.com for the last year and was able to message and receive messages from friends as well as add gamer tags and check achievements. “Yes your account is on the system but is cancelled” he hastily said.
“But surely if my account is on the system, you can re-activate it. If I provide you with new credit card information, surely you can give me a subscription back” I worryingly asked. “You are too late Sir; your account is cancelled forever”.
One of our readers came across this article that focused on the current state of gaming on how downloading video games may become the wave of the future? Will CD’s and DVD’s give way to just pure downloadable content? It could be quite possible with the widespread acceptance of Broadband and High Speed Internet services, in a not so distant past cartridges were the only gaming format available and those have gone the way of the dinosaur now.
According to the NPD Group, a consulting firm that collects sales data on consumer purchases like games, over the past three months about 86 percent of video games were bought on discs, with the remaining 14 percent making it to computers or game consoles as downloads.
14% is pretty impressive if you ask me for purchases. Read More »
These two videos show some nice scenes of both my favorite and least favorite Street Fighter characters, Sagat and Balrog respectively. I have to say that whoever was using Sagat should be beaten severely for misusing Sagat. I did not see one Tiger uppercut in this match and this guy let himself get man-handled by Zangief, for shame, but still a great video.
Hit the jump to see Balrog get owned by Zangief. Read More »
It’s early code on a test arcade machine, but Street Fighter 4 looks to shaping up nicely. I’m really glad they stuck with 2D. The animations looks fluid and I really like the art style. Can’t wait for this to ship State-side.
That’s right folks they have a prototype Street Fighter 4 cabinet already made up, I have to say that when I saw it the change in my pocket jingled! Gives you a nice view of the different characters including Guile Chun Li and Zangief. I wonder if they plan on making more of these and actually releasing them to arcades? It could be the revival of the arcade as we know it.
Microsoft sent out a press release to let us know that there will be discounts on three Xbox Live Arcade games this week.
Bankshot Billiards 2 will be dropped to 900 MS Points from it’s normal 1200 MS Points, while Frogger and Hardwood Spades will be 300 MS Points instead of 400 MS Points.
The reduced prices run from 12:00am GMT (8am EDT) September 26th through 11: 59pm GMT (7:59 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, October 2nd. So in case you don’t have these games and want to save some cash, get downloading this week.
If you have not picked up an Xbox 360 yet and wanted to get some free stuff, go to create your own set up at Xbox.com and you can score yourself two free Xbox Live arcade games with your purchase.
The two titles are Frogger and Robotron, but they are both free with your purchase, so the price is right.
We're like Spaceballs... we're making Loot Ninja everything. Coming soon we'll have hats, shirts, hoodies, possibly banana hammocks if one Editor has his way...
Check out the shirt prototypes here and the hats here
If you have not picked up an Xbox 360 yet and wanted to get some free stuff, go to create your own set up at Xbox.com and you can score yourself two free Xbox Live arcade games with your purchase.
